Roux At Skindles

We are delighted to share this lovely artist’s impression of the new Roux at Skindles giving a comprehensive view from Maidenhead bridge.
We are scheduled to be open early October and we will have our online booking system live in late August, thank you so much for all of your emails of support and for the booking and job enquiries we have had so far.
When we first occupied our new building at the end of 2017, it was just an empty shell and we spent the first few months work...ing out how we could turn it into the best possible design in order to deliver our ambitious plans and create a wonderful space for our guests. It then took some months to put together the fantastic team of designers, architect, builders and professionals to support the whole project.
It has been great fun for some of us to be able to take time out from the Waterside Inn at Bray and plan our new and very different sister brasserie. Lengthy enjoyable discussions have been had deciding on a huge number of elements, such as the detailed design of the kitchen and its equipment, wall and floor coverings, colours, fabrics, the design of the bar, table sizes and shapes, testing a huge variety of chairs, salt & pepper pots, crockery, cutlery…… the list seems endless.
And of course there has been lengthy discussion about operational details – staffing, menus, wine lists, cocktails, uniforms, health and safety, wifi, phones – everything that has to go into the planning of a brand new successful brasserie.
Here, at the end of July 2018, we have now reached a point where most of the really heavy and dirty building work is complete, first fix is done and we can get a feel of the different spaces created on each floor that we have been planning for over a year. Soon we will begin some of the truly exciting elements to transform the building into our new brasserie, from the current concrete and brick shell.
We can soon tempt you with some interior shots to give you a glimpse into what has been happening……
We are hospitality people at heart and cannot wait to throw open our doors to you.
Before the opening, we look forward to the launch of our new website, recruiting our new team, polishing the place up and welcoming our new guests and friends from Maidenhead and beyond!
Please be patient and keep an eye out in the coming weeks for further news and when we go live for bookings.
Thank you so much for your interest and we cannot wait to meet you at Roux at Skindles!
Michel, Alain & the whole Roux family
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The Roux family launched The Waterside Inn Bray in 1972 and we were so excited to learn that the history of our new Roux at Skindles venue dates back to before 1736.
By 1826, William Skindle was keeper of The Orkney Arms, an old coaching inn. By the 1860s, it had become a fancy hotel enhanced by the bar in a riverside cottage called Skindles. In addition to the fine food and drink, the young Victorians and Edwardians could hire pleasure boats from the lawns by the river and ...meet the dashing young men of the next-door Brigade of Guards Boat Club. Maidenhead became famous and rather notorious as somewhere for the elite to have fun and “play away” from home. William Skindle's successor Henry Hoare kept Victorians happy and by 1904, when James Hodgson expanded into the Guards Club to create the iconic riverside image of Skindles, Edwardian music hall comedians were raising laughs by asking 'Are you married or do you live in Maidenhead?'.
Skindles Hotel was the place to be seen outside of London for generations until a devastating fire in 1947. It was restored in 1950 as an elegant and charming location where those with ambition and wherewithal rubbed shoulders with Royalty, Prime Ministers, Presidents and stars of stage and screen. In the 1960s, a casino evolved to a nightclub and again to the Studio Valbonne, hugely popular with numerous famous bands of the 1970s including The Rolling Stones, Thin Lizzy, The Strawbs, Judas Priest, The Buzzcocks and AC/DC. Sadly, it declined thereafter and finally closed its doors on 31st March 1995 leaving on Taplow Riverside only an empty, dilapidated shell and so many wonderful memories.
It is so exciting and such a privilege for us all within the Roux family to be re-establishing the soul and tradition of Skindles. We look forward so much to extending its history by the launch of our brand new restaurant and hospitality venture on this wonderful site.
Much of the help in learning about this history came from historian Nigel Smales and we are grateful also for the kind use of the photograph by Terry Clark and the Facebook Group Maidenhead Memories.
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The weather has been fabulous over the last few weeks, which makes it such a shame that we are not sharing our lovely new terrace with our future guests enjoying the views of the river and the bridge. We are so looking forward to sharing this special spot and only hope the sun shines well into the autumn (with a little rain for the gardens and farms of course!). However, we are not letting the darker nights and colder weather beat us as we are designing a number of measure...s that will extend the use of our terrace even when the nights are closing in and the autumn mists come rolling up the river. And of course, there are some great views from inside too!
Until we open our doors to our guests we are back to the reality of getting the building work complete and making sure we get up and running as soon as we possibly can.
In the meantime, enjoy the sunshine!
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Whilst lots of local people have seen the back view of our new restaurant and bar from the bridge, not many have seen what will, in the not too distant future, be our front entrance. To be fair, our hoarding to keep the site safe is actually hiding the front door itself but we think it will make a fantastic entrance once we are up and running. Whilst we like to think we know a bit about food and wine, we consider ourselves very fortunate to be so well supported by a great t...eam of professionals and builders who have advised us all the way. Progress so far is that we have installed all the steelwork now to finish off our top floor dining area and internal walls are now being built to create the different areas within the building. The kitchen is particularly complicated with all the different items of equipment measured to the millimetre to ensure it fits into our designated area. Fitting out a new restaurant from scratch is so different to when the Roux Brothers started their business in the 1960s. We now have to focus on not just food and wine, but also things like WiFi, till systems, credit card payment systems, online reservations, phone systems, health and safety, data protection etc etc. It’s a great challenge but we are loving it. We shall keep our Facebook friends and followers in touch with progress!
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